Former University of New Mexico baseball standout Luis Gonzalez bats for the Sacramento River Cats during a game at Albuquerque’s Isotopes Park in late July 2023.
Former UNM Lobo baseball star Luis Gonzalez, who played for the San Francisco Giants in 2022 after two seasons with the Chicago White Sox, has signed a Minor League deal to join the New York Yankees with an invitation to the Major League team’s spring training.
Free-agent outfielder Luis González has agreed to a minor-league deal with the Yankees with an invitation to major-league spring training, source tells @TheAthletic.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 21, 2023
Gonzalez had surgery on a herniated disc last offseason and did not make it back to the Giants this past season, but played 37 minor league games, including at Isotopes Park with the visiting Sacramento River Cats.
His signing, because of his name being burned into more recent Yankees lore as the same as the former Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder who led the charge in beating the Bronx Bombers in the 2001 World Series, had some Yankees fans worried about the karma such a move might make.
As one Yankees blog, YanksGoYard.com, wrote: “Did the New York Yankees really need another outfielder this badly? And did they need on with this name?”
Gonzalez, the National League Rookie of the Month in May 2022, has hit .253 in 107 MLB games played with four home runs and 36 RBIs.
In three seasons at UNM (2015 to 2017) where he was a position player and a pitcher, Gonzalez hit .356 with 18 home runs and 113 RBIs at the plate to go along with an 11-6 record in 127.2 innings pitched.
